The House I Live In begins with Frank Sinatra recording “If You Are but a Dream” with a full orchestra. He goes outside to smoke a cigarette and sees a gang of boys beating up a small boy because he’s Jewish. Frank asks them if they’re Nazis and then tries to convince them of the importance of religious tolerance. One of the kids’ father is a soldier who had a blood transfusion, and Sinatra points out that the blood could have come from someone Jewish because all blood is the same. He even points out that Presbyterians and Jews are side-by-side when they bomb Japanese battleships. (He does use a derogatory term for the Japanese, and that seems to undercut his argument a bit.) Sinatra, then at the height of his popularity, sings the title song to the gang and their victim, certainly a unique way to convince them that America is made up of difference races and religions and should allow for these differences to coexist beside each other.
Oscar Win: Special Award for Tolerance Short
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